Port eyes rail work

Port of Whitman County’s Chief Operating Officer Kara Reibold, recently received a phone call for an option to improve the rail inspections and maintenance for the county.

A former employee of Watco is just getting started on building a new business and contacting the ports and tenants along the railroad. He is offering services at $300 per site per month, so the Port of Whitman, if they engaged his services, would be charged $600 a month for Wilma and Central Ferry.

“We would get more than an inspection with this, he would go through and send us a form that gives more detail, but would also offer some of the solutions to things,” said Riebold.

Among the services he offers, he’s willing to take a walk down the lines with maintenance guys, and educate them on what he’s doing, what he’s looking at, and what he’s watching for.

“When we get to writing grants, we’ll have a kind of contracted expert who can go over the detail’s and help whoever’s working on them with a good description of the current assets, and then the level we’re trying to bring them up to,” said Riebold expressing more of the benefits.

Watco currently does the inspection on the railroad, but it’s very brief and not always relevant, doesn’t offer solutions to any issues, doesn’t report on much on projects, but also doesn’t cost anything.

“It seems like it would be a good thing to try for a year and see if it works,” said Riebold “We’ve just focused on weed spray, we haven’t focused on track.”

Port executive director Joe Poiré urged the port commissioners to consider moving to preventative maintenance.

“This would be a proactive way to try and keep things in a better form,” said Pioré. “We’ve always been reactive, and we could pull some receipts over the last 20 years, but one small repair getting [railworks] mobilized down to Central Ferry cost 7,000 bucks.”